Refugees climb over fence; police intensify surveillance

Published söndag 15 november 2015 kl 17.03

Outside the Migration Agency in Malmö, families are reunited after several years spent fleeing. At the same time, others climb over the fence so that they can travel onwards to Norway, Finland or back to Germany. Photo: Julia Wiraeus/ TT

Police have stepped up their efforts to try to keep a closer eye on the Migration Agency's facility in Malmö after some refugees have been reported escaping in order to avoid registering as asylum seekers in Sweden, reports news agency TT.

Anders Ygeman (Social Democrat), Sweden's Minister of Home Affairs, told TT that this is not how it's supposed to work. Only last week, he announced that Sweden would be instituting internal border controls, which would prevent refugees from passing through Sweden on the way to seek asylum elsewhere. The border checks went into effect on Thursday.

However, on Saturday, TT witnessed about 10 people climbing over the high fencing around the Migration Agency in Malmö, to be able to travel onwards to Norway, Finland or back to Germany.

"It's bad and cold here," one woman who climbed over the fence told TT.

Sofie Malm, who works with an organization that helps refugees, told TT that since the new border controls went into effect, "they have been shocked. They had expected a more humane society and had wanted to have more information from the Migration Agency."

The police and the Migration Agency are aware that some people have escaped since the border controls were instituted, and Ygeman said that the issue needs to be discussed with the police: how to make sure that the process is working.

Now, the police intensified their surveillance efforts around the Migration Agency in Malmö.

"We've placed patrols where it is easy to climb over the fencing, but the area is big and hard to keep watch over. There are a lot of people and too few police," one officer at the scene told TT, preferring to be anonymous.

According to the officer, many refugees are disappointed by how they are being received.

"They feel that they are not getting any help and they want to leave," said the police officer.